1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to Internet-based voice systems. More specifically, the present invention is directed to Internet-based voice systems that are used within computer server networks.
2. Description of Related Art
Telephone users are steadily increasing their demands for services that are accessible through their telephones. Telephone users want to access the range and types of services that they are accustomed to accessing over the Internet. Internet applications include for example content searching applications as provided by such companies as Yahoo or Infoseek. Other applications include address or phone number lookups.
The Internet provides users with visually-based interfaces to access the service applications. However, telephone users have difficulty in using Internet applications due to their devices not being adept to interacting with the visually-based interfaces of the Internet applications. For example, cell phone users have relatively small displays within which to view Internet information.
Telephony servers provide the computer software and hardware infrastructure for handling telephone calls over Internet networks. However, current telephony servers exhibit many disadvantages in processing telephone calls. An exemplary disadvantage is that many current telephony servers are limited in the range and flexibility of the services they offer. Such telephony servers have only a fixed number of applications to interact with the users.
This arises due to telephony servers typically relying upon “hard-wired” solutions where the telephony servers use only a pre-selected number of voice applications whose operational requirements are known beforehand. Limiting the pool of voice applications to a certain pre-selected number is an undesirable trait of the current telephony approaches. These disadvantages as well as others render current telephony systems less efficient and effective to service the needs of users.